


Giving Up

by PeachyRenjun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gifted Kid Burnout, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, doyoung is definitely written as autism spectrum in this, you don't have to read it as that if you don't want to tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27430285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyRenjun/pseuds/PeachyRenjun
Summary: “Can we go to some shitty diner, like the type you only go to when you’re drunk at 2 am?”“I mean, neither of us are drunk and it’s not 2 am, but sure.”
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79





	Giving Up

Doyoung is twenty-two years, five months, eleven days, and three hours old when he gives up. “Fuck it,” he whispers to himself, looking down at the never-ending sheet of matrices on the table in front of him. “Fuck it.”

He could do literally anything else with his life. Run off into the woods, move halfway around the world, watch a million stars fall and try to find them-- Gods, for as much as Doyoung knows it’s illogical, he’d give anything to give up logic for a few hours. It’s late in the semester, in the awkward space between midterms and finals. He’s only a few credit hours away from completing his requirements, but somehow the closer he gets to a sheet full of checkmarks the less he feels like he’d earned anything. A few thousands deeper into debt, and for what? A degree he couldn’t use in a field he hates? Who’ll give a fuck, anyway, when everything falls apart?

He picks his bag up off the floor of the café, shoving his textbook and assignment into the bag with only enough care to make sure nothing tears. Bag over shoulder, paper-plastic coffee cup in hand, he walks past the fifteen other twenty-somethings doing their best not to sob into their textbooks, and he walks out into the cold winter air.

He knows what he’ll do. Tae will say yes, when has he ever been able to deny Doyoung anything? Especially since he’s graduated, he’s not got anything tying him down. Doyoung can crash on his couch, cook with him in the morning,  _ kiss him in the evenings _ \--and maybe that last bit is just wishful thinking, but Doyoung knows he can at least count on Tae for the first part of it. Doyoung’s usually not the type to fall apart, but when he is, Tae’s always there to pat his arm and tell him it’ll be okay. Eventually.

“Tae,” Doyoung says into his phone, as he drops his bag two-feet into his dorm room and reaches down to untie his shoes. “I need to crash at your place.”

“Isn’t it the middle of the semester?”

Doyoung snorts. “Yes, but if I stay on this campus another day I’m going to suffocate myself. I need to think about something else, I need to do something else, I need to just-- I just can’t be here. Doing this. Y’know.”

“I know.”

And Taeyong does know, because he’s pulled up in his shitty jeep an hour later, waiting for Doyoung to load his one-and-a-half suitcases into the backseat. Doyoung leaves a note for Yuta-- _ “I’ll be back next week, probably, and if I’m not, you know where I am” _ \--and he slumps his way into Taeyong’s passenger seat with a sigh and hands on his cheeks.

“How bad is it, this time?”

“Worse than before,” Doyoung mutters, and he knows Tae will know what he means. “I just-- You know.”

“Yeah.” Tae doesn’t look over at him, eyes focused on the road, but Doyoung doesn’t need him to. “It’s a long drive back, do you want to stop for dinner on the way, or?”

“Can we go to some shitty diner, like the type you only go to when you’re drunk at 2 am?”

“I mean, neither of us are drunk and it’s not 2 am, but sure.”

Doyoung flicks on the radio, a few minutes into the drive, and one of Tae’s mixtapes comes on over the speakers. Tae’s that type of person, the person who still has CDs in his car and listens to his own music because he always needs to find the flaws in his creation. Never satisfied, he has to fix it. Doyoung’s like that too, sometimes, or at least he used to be. Before deadlines and grades got in the way, Doyoung used to aim for perfection too.

“Tae.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know if I want to go home.”

“I know you don’t,” Tae says. He knows what home means, that Doyoung means Tae’s shitty apartment just as much as he means his parents and his brother and the piano he’d spent hours playing until he could recognize the keys by touch alone. Anything familiar right now is poison, because it would keep Doyoung down. Tae knows him, and he knows what Doyoung needs. “We can sleep at my place tonight, and we’ll figure out where to go in the morning, yeah?”

“You’ve got enough saved to take a week or two off?”

“A week or two, yeah.”

Sometimes, when Doyoung thinks about the two of them, the only word that comes to mind is  _ disaster. _ He knows it won’t end like this, that they’ll be back to normal in two weeks and Doyoung will be crying into his analysis homework once more before the semester is up, but sometimes he thinks that the two of them would be better off at the bottom of the ocean. Hand in hand, walking into the sea. They’d be the type to do it, the type to let it all go just because they could never live up to what was set for them. Perfectionist kids, raised up to be more than they possibly could be. Something severed in them, somewhere between sixteen and twenty, and they’ve never been the same since. Disasters.

Halfway between two cities that feel too much like home, they pull off the highway into a little town that feels like yesterday. Bright lights, signs that shine fluorescent yellow and depress everything in a thirty kilometer radius. It’s absolutely terrible, and it’s everything Doyoung asked for. Tae steps out of the car first, walking around the car to take one of Doyoung’s hands and pull him along. If they’d been around anyone they’d known, Doyoung would pretend to hate it.

The diner’s quiet and not quiet at all. It’s got that low hum to it, the one that stores and restaurants try and project to make you feel like you’re not being listened to. Doyoung hates it, hates the way it invades his ears and pulls out any substance or concentration his brain had left to offer. He’s never been good at processing two sounds at once, and that’s why he likes it quiet or loud, one or the other. Never both, never at the same time.

“D’you want me to pick for you?” Tae says, leafing through the menu.

Doyoung nods. Tae really does know how to read him. He can see the annoyed look in Doyoung’s eyes, the way he always squints and presses his palms to his temples when the world gets a little too overwhelming. Doyoung can’t think, at times like these, and Tae’s here to be his brain. His autopilot.

“You can sleep for the rest of the drive, if you want,” Tae says, once he’s ordered and passed the menus back to the waitress. “You just have to get through dinner, first.”

Doyoung laughs through closed lips, and he tries his hardest to let his breath cleanse his senses. “This is the hard part, though. When we get back in the car, I’ll be fine.”

Tae hums. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Maybe,” Doyoung says, and he doesn’t really mean it. He knows his head, he knows when it’s fucked up and when there’s anything to do to help it. He can fix himself, if he tries hard enough. He just has to focus on the right things, process it the way he would anything else. Logically, as much as he hates it.

It’s in D-minor, the annoying background music they’re playing is in D-minor. Doyoung loves that key, would’ve loved it if it had been played in any other context. If the fluorescents hadn’t been buzzing at him and messing up the melody, he might’ve listened to it purely for enjoyment. He can deal with D-minor, or at least he can convince himself he can. Lock out the buzzing, separate it, and let the music flow. That’s how Doyoung has to deal with it, that’s how he can make it better. Maybe.

“What happened? This time?”

“Nothing  _ happened,” _ Doyoung replies, trying his hardest to look Tae in the eyes instead of gazing off over his shoulder. “I just-- Don’t know what I’m doing. And I need to deal with that.”

“And you will,” Tae says, because he’s always believed in wishing things into existence. “You know yourself, Do-ie. You’ll get over it.”

He will, Doyoung knows he will, and maybe that’s what he hates about it. It’s comforting and terrifying all at once, the way he knows himself well enough to know what pattern he’ll fall into. False choices, that’s all he has. Maybe god didn’t predetermine Doyoung’s life, but Doyoung sure did. He made all the  _ right decisions _ and that leads him down certain endings and away from others. He knows exactly where he’ll end up, five to ten years from now, with a job he hates and that pays too much to be moral, with a wife he’ll love but never  _ love, _ with kids he’ll care too much for and never know how to be there for them. Doyoung’s not good at feelings, and the path he chose for himself was one where he wouldn’t have to think about it. Because Doyoung knows how to lock things away, how to ignore the weight in his chest and pretend he’s let it go. He’s never been good, though, at actually letting it free.

“Yeah,” Doyoung says, as he takes a deep breath. “I’ll get over it.”

“I’ll be here, if you need anything,” Tae says, reaching out to take Doyoung’s hand and still the fingers that Doyoung hadn’t even been aware he’d been tapping against the table. “Like always.”

“Yeah.”

Tae’s always there, and Doyoung probably doesn’t deserve it. They understand each other, they’re ride-or-die, and at the same time Doyoung feels guilty about the way Tae will drop everything for him. One hour away, not a lifetime away. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, though, when Doyoung thinks about Tae and the future and everything that they could’ve been and should’ve been and aren’t. Tae’s a lot more open about things, he doesn’t have to deal with the same worries Doyoung does. Tae’s already accepted his place in life, his shitty apartment and job insecurity and too many hours for too little pay. There’s a certain honesty in that, an honesty that lets Taeyong bleach his hair and dye it a hundred different colors and wear a rainbow pin on his shirt in broad daylight. Doyoung doesn’t have that kind of honesty, or at least he doesn’t let it project beyond himself. He’s honest with himself, sure, he knows the way his heart beats a little too quickly when Tae takes his hand. But he doesn’t dare act on it, because that future he’s planned out with a perfect job and perfect wife and perfect kids doesn’t have a place in it for Taeyong to stand. 

“How’s everything going, for you?” Doyoung asks, when his brain’s quiet enough to let him focus on something outside, again. “Didn’t you tell me you started dating someone?”

“Dating might be a bit of an exaggeration,” Taeyong says, that same, teasing grin on his face. He shouldn’t say things like that, not with that look, not when he’s holding Doyoung’s hand. “We went out once, I think. He wasn’t really my type.”

“Why not?”

“Too-- Well, I guess he wasn’t serious enough.”

“About being in a relationship?”

“Something like that.”

Tae always tells him everything and nothing, because they’re best friends but Tae’s got a million other commitments to keep. Other people have secrets, Tae tells Doyoung, and sometimes they’re not Tae’s to tell. Fair enough, Doyoung supposes, even for as little as he understands it. Doyoung only tells people--even Taeyong--his secrets if he’s prepared for them to get out. Put something out into the world and it’s out, no taking it back or keeping it contained. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for Doyoung to relax around Tae, sometimes, why Tae probably still thinks of Doyoung as his straight-laced, eccentric,  _ straight _ best-friend.

“Are you into anyone else?” Doyoung asks, because he’s always been too polite for his own good.

“Not really, I guess. No one who’d actually be...attainable.”

And Doyoung hates the way he phrases that, because sometimes Doyoung feels like Tae feels it too, like the little things that Doyoung tells himself echo in Tae’s head and they could’ve had that future, they  _ should’ve _ had that future if Doyoung were a little more honest and a little less focused on keeping his perfectly-planned future perfect. Doyoung may have told himself he was giving up, but giving up never feels as good as pretending does.

“That must suck.”

“Yeah.”

Tae knows not to turn the questions back on Doyoung, because he’ll always get the same answers. Not yet, not her. And maybe one day Doyoung will have good news to give Tae, and he’ll invite Tae to be his best man, and he’ll ignore the way that Taeyong can’t meet his eyes for the weeks after. He knows what it’ll be like, how much it will hurt, and he’ll do it anyway. Choices never feel quite as good as predestination, because at least with predestination you can pretend it’s not your fault when it falls apart.

“Do you ever think,” Doyoung takes a deep breath, “do you ever think about what would happen if I actually dropped out?”

“I mean, you won’t.”

“But if I did.”

“You’d hate it,” Tae replies. “You’d feel free for a few weeks, and then you’d feel like you’d made the biggest mistake of your life.”

And Doyoung knows he’s right. He’d give it all up in an instant, and he’d feel bad when the stars began to fall on him. Because Doyoung’s not afraid of many things, but failure’s the only one that really seems like a threat. Anything else, Doyoung knows how to deal with. But that’s the one thing he’s never faced, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to face it. Doyoung was raised in one of those families where perfect was never good enough and 107s on tests were met with  _ well why didn’t you get a 108?  _ and words never hurt more than your own expectations did. He’ll reach for the stars, and when he stands on point and never reaches higher than the tree above his head, he’ll at least be able to say that it was always out of reach anyway. At least when you fail at the impossible you know you couldn’t have done better; when you fail at the ordinary you know it will hurt.

They’re back in the car by the time the sun’s fully set, and as fluorescent buzz fades into engine hum, Doyoung knows that he can let  _ something _ go even as much as he can never let  _ everything _ go. Doyoung’s bad at choices, but even he knows there’s only two ways this ends.

Doyoung knows Tae’s apartment better than he knows his parents’ home, he knows the bathrooms and the closets and the creaky floorboards and the way that the door never shuts without a shove. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth,” Doyoung says, before Tae can ask him whether he wants to stay up and watch a movie and  _ do something they’ll regret. _

“Alright,” Tae says, as he sets Doyoung’s smaller bag down on the couch. “Are you going to take the couch, or?”

“What else would I do?”

Taeyong doesn’t answer, and Doyoung doesn’t need him to. He knows what he was saying, what he was implying. Tae doesn’t cross boundaries, not when he thinks Doyoung is straight and uninterested, but the offer’s always there. Quiet, but present. Doyoung could take it, if he wanted to. If he wasn’t afraid of what would happen if he did.

And that’s the thing, the part of it that Doyoung’s always too afraid to confront. It’s not  _ being in love with Taeyong _ that Doyoung’s scared of; it’s not being vulnerable. It’s of knowing that one day, someday, maybe tomorrow or in a hundred tomorrows’ time, Doyoung will have to let go of him. And Doyoung’s not prepared for that, because Tae’s always been there, and sometimes tiptoe-ing around the obvious is easier than dealing with the fact of what’s happened.  _ Better to have loved and lost, _ Doyoung’s ass. He loves Taeyong, but he loves him from a distance, and that’s the only way he can love him. Because he doesn’t want to see the look in Tae’s eyes when he has to end it, when life catches up to them and a pretty girl with a prettier name waltzes into Doyoung’s life and fills that silhouette too perfectly to let go.

It’s the  _ what-ifs _ that get to Doyoung, when he lies awake at night and feels the wind from the window bite at his skin. When he hears Taeyong two rooms away, tossing and turning and mumbling to himself. Because plans are plans, but sometimes the puzzle pieces fit right regardless of the plans. Doyoung isn’t an idealist, he doesn’t believe in soulmates or feel like Taeyong’s the only person he could ever love this way. He knows that’s nonsense, he knows that there’s thousands, maybe millions of people he could’ve loved, if the circumstances were a little different. But Taeyong’s here, Taeyong’s  _ always here, _ and sometimes Doyoung lets the images of pink sunrises and whispered promises settle in his stomach. Doyoung always thinks in patterns, and Taeyong is the pattern that won’t let him sleep easily.

“Fuck it,” Doyoung whispers to himself. “Fuck it.”

He peels the blankets away, stands, and walks to the door of Tae’s room. He’s left the door open, the way he always does when Doyoung is over, and Doyoung knows that he’ll be welcomed when he lays down in Taeyong’s sheets.

He lets himself get too close, he lets himself lay his head on Tae’s shoulder and try to sleep. He knows he still won’t be able to, not with so many things running through his brain.

“Do-ie?” Tae mumbles, half-asleep.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Taeyong laughs. “Too many things on your mind?”

“Mhm.” Doyoung takes a deep breath, and he considers it, and with one last abandonment of all logical sense and planning, he says it. “I’m giving up.”

“What are you giving up on, exactly?”

“Being the person I’m supposed to be.”

“And what does that mean?”

Doyoung’s still not sure of that either, really, but he knows he’ll figure it out. He’ll have to figure it out, sometime over the next week. Maybe, if he’s lucky, Tae will know which parts are worth keeping. “It means not letting you go.”

Tae laughs, once more, but Doyoung can hear the edge behind it. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You know what I mean,” Doyoung says. He brings his hand up, tracing one finger along Tae’s jawline, the way he knows will get his meaning across. “I’m keeping you. If you’ll let me.”

Tae raises an eyebrow, and even in the gentle moonlight, Doyoung knows the look in his eyes is questioning. Not quite surprised, but. Almost as if he’d never thought he’d see the day. “You’re--”

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” Tae says. “And you like me?”

“Love you,” Doyoung says. “I think.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.” He’s not really sure he knows what love feels like, because emotions are hard and Doyoung’s not that good at them, but he thinks he understands. This is the closest he’s ever felt to it, and if it makes Tae happy-- Doyoung will do anything. Now that he’s committed to it, he’ll do anything for Tae.

“Well,” Tae says, brushing his fingers through Doyoung’s hair, “I think I love you too.”

“I’m glad,” Doyoung mutters, because he’d always known. He’s always been able to read Tae like that, even though people are so hard to read sometimes. “I think I’m still going to go back to school, next week--”

“Good.”

“But after I graduate, I still have to figure things out. To make a new plan, and set everything in place.”

“And I have a place, in this plan?”

“Yeah.”

Tae nods. He’s still holding Doyoung close, still massaging at his neck the way Doyoung had told him helped. He’s always good to Doyoung like that. “Well, we have all week to think about it, don’t we?”

Doyoung nods. “As long as I have you.”

“You always have me, Do-ie, you know that.”

Doyoung is twenty-two years, five months, eleven days, and thirteen hours old when he gives up. It feels like coming home, and not in a bad way.


End file.
